More BPA News and Avoidance Tips

Plenty Magazine, Mindy Pennybacker
Published September 19, 2008

First, the good news: There are plentiful alternatives to Bisphenol A (BPA), that pesky chemical menace that sneaks from plastics and cans into our food and drink, and is found in 90% of our bodies. And it just got another bad report card. Long suspected of interfering with normal hormonal and nervous system development, BPA is newly linked to higher incidence of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, in a study published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). And, in its final report on BPA issued earlier this month, the National Toxicology Program (NTP) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) confirmed earlier findings that the chemical is of "some concern for effects on development of the prostate gland and brain and for behavioral effects in fetuses, infants and children," per NIH's announcement. To read the full report, click here. On a five-point scale of levels of concern, "some concern" falls exactly at mid-point. "We are expressing this level of concern because we see developmental changes occurring in some animals at BPA exposures similar to those experienced by humans," said John Bucher, Ph.D., NTP associate director. In brief, we are now being exposed to BPA in comparable amounts to those causing serious health problems in animals. While briefly wondering what it would take to really raise NTP's eyebrows, we conclude that we'd rather not wait for more bad news before taking steps to clear the most obvious BPA delivery systems out of our daily lives. AS many concerned consumers know, these principally include polycarbonate (Lexan, recycling code #7) sports and baby bottles, and the linings of nearly all canned foods and infant formulas. The latter, according to studies by Environmental Working Group (EWG) and others, leach more BPA than plastic bottles do. Acidic foods, such as tomatoes, tend to leach most. ... Click here to read this post.